Day: October 13, 2023

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell Releases Statement: ‘My Heart Remains Heavy’ over ‘The Pain, Loss, and Horror Endured by the Jewish People’; Makes No Mention of the Atrocities Committed by Hamas Against Israel

Kaitlin Housler

Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell released a statement on Friday offering prayers for “anyone with loved ones endangered by the ongoing conflict” in the Middle East, failing to mention and condemn the atrocities committed by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Israel.

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State Lawmaker Plans to Introduce Bill to Help Math Retention Rates for Tennessee Students

TC Weber

State House Representative Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) told The Tennessee Star that he plans to introduce a new bill that closely resembles Temnnessee’s existing third-grade retention bill for literacy.

Tennessee implemented new policies last year to address low literacy rates among third-graders. This coming year, Tennessee lawmakers intend to turn their focus to mathematics.

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Auto Workers Union Just Shut Down Ford’s Biggest and Most Profitable Plant

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The United Auto Workers (UAW) unexpectedly walked off the job Wednesday evening at the largest Ford plant in an escalation of its strike against major automakers.

Around 8,700 UAW members walked off the job at 6:30 p.m. ET at Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville yesterday in a previously unannounced move, completely shutting down the plant, according to an announcement from the UAW. The new strike location comes as UAW workers are already striking at 43 other plants at the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — across the U.S. in a strike that started after contract negotiations failed to reach a deal before their Sept. 14 deadline.

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Over $400 Million in Taxpayer Funds Have Been Sent to Gaza Since Hamas Takeover

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Ever since the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas first took over the territory of the Gaza Strip in 2007, the United States has sent more than $400 million in taxpayer dollars to the region.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, documents from the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the $400 million spent over the last 14 years since 2009 has allegedly gone towards development projects. Despite USAID’s insistence that the money could only be spent on humanitarian purposes, many critics have warned that the funds could be used by Hamas to fund its acts of terrorism against Israel and the West.

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Tennessee Appeals Court to Hear Oral Arguments in Covenant Killer Records Case

M.D. Kittle

The Tennessee Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear oral arguments Monday afternoon in The Tennessee Star’s lawsuit demanding the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County release the Covenant School killer’s manifesto and related records.

The court is weighing whether to overturn Davidson County Judge I’Ashea Myles’ ruling to allow Covenant Presbyterian School parents, staff and others to intervene in the lawsuit and argue why the manifesto should remain locked away from the public.

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Other States’ Film Tax Credits Dwarf Pennsylvania’s Program

The Center Square

Pennsylvania’s investment in film tax credits hasn’t delivered the economic returns policymakers had anticipated, according to a recent analysis.

In its five-year review, the Independent Fiscal Office said the program’s $8.5 million net tax revenue does accomplish its legislative intent, even if tens of thousands of dollars in potential profit seep out of the state in the meantime.

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Florida Bill Would Ban Practice of Citizen’s Arrest

The Center Square

A new bill has been filed that would ban the practice of citizen’s arrest in Florida, but will likely find resistance in a Republican-dominated Legislature.

House Bill 27 is sponsored by Rep. Christopher Benjamin, D-Miami Gardens, and would prohibit citizen’s arrests while specifying exceptions. In the bill’s text, it states that a private person who is not in law enforcement is unable to arrest another citizen for any perceived violations of state law.

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Trump Leads Biden Wisconsin: Poll

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Former President Donald Trump is leading President Joe Biden in the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin following a series of similar findings in other key swing states, according to a Thursday poll.

Trump is beating Biden 42% to 40% among Wisconsin voters with 11% choosing someone else and 8% remaining undecided, according to an Emerson College survey. The poll comes after several other recent battleground state surveys found Trump ahead of Biden, including in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

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Arizona GOP Leaders Slam ‘Vague Threats’ from Gov. Katie Hobbs over Empowerment Scholarship Accounts

Tom Pappert

The Republican leaders of the Arizona Legislature joined the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in a joint press release on Wednesday in response to a recent social media post by Governor Katie Hobbs (D). In her post, the governor claimed Arizona’s popular Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program was unsustainable and called for it to be restricted.

Arizona State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne (R), Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma (R-Peoria), and Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen (R-Gilbert) issued a press release defending the state’s education voucher program after Hobbs called it “unaccountable and unsustainable” in a statement posted to X.

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Virginia Gov. Youngkin Makes Closing Argument on Abortion with $1.4 Million Ad Buy

Neil W. McCabe

The Spirit of Virginia political action committee run by Virginia’s Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin kicked off a $1.4 million ad buy defending the Republican position on abortion—marking the first serious effort to counter Democrats by any Republican politician since the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which overturned both the 1973 Roe v. Wade and the 1992 Casey decisions the created the so-called right to an abortion.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch captured the reluctance of Republicans to mention abortion in its article about the ad.

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Teacher: Anoka-Hennepin Administrators, Teachers Intentionally Deceive Parents

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Some administrators and teachers intentionally deceive parents, and those who don’t go along with the district’s political agenda are bullied or threatened, according to an Anoka-Hennepin public school teacher.

Alpha News spoke with that teacher, who asked to be identified by a pseudonym for fear of being retaliated against, in season two of “Trapped!: Chaos in the Classroom.”

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Federal Judge Denies Justice Department’s Latest Attempt to Block Georgia Voting Law

Tom Pappert

A federal judge denied a preliminary injunction request from President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice on Wednesday after the administration sought to stop enforcement of the 2021 Georgia voting law they claim discriminates against black voters.

United States District Judge J.P. Boulee ruled the Department of Justice is unlikely to prove any of its claims at trial, and denied the Biden administration’s request to pause portions of the law.

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Ohio Bill Would Require Porn Companies to Get Age Verification

The Center Square

Disregarding age restrictions for pornography and creating sexual “deepfakes” may soon trigger criminal charges in Ohio.

A proposal offered in the state legislature makes distributing sexually explicit material without verifying a customer’s age a third-degree felony. Likewise, minors caught lying about their identity to access porn would face a fourth-degree misdemeanor.

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Fani Willis Rebukes Congressional Oversight for Trump Case, Claims Jim Jordan’s Effort ‘Offensive to the Rule of Law’

Tom Pappert

Another letter sent by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) to U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH-04) was obtained by the media on Thursday. In the letter, Willis again rebuked Jordan’s requests for information about her case against former President Donald Trump, and denied the U.S. Constitution gives Congress oversight of her work.

In her letter, which is dated October 11, Willis accused Jordan of either being “ignorant of the United States and Georgia Constitutions and codes” or using his “authority as Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary to attempt to obstruct and interfere” with her case against Trump.

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Large Numbers of Syrians and Pakistanis Flooding Across the Border into Arizona

Rachel Alexander

Investigative journalist Ben Bergquam of Real America’s Voice and Frontline America has been documenting the chaos on the U.S. border with Mexico, especially along Arizona’s border. On Tuesday, he stopped by the border in Lukeville, where the Border Patrol told him there are large numbers of Syrians and Pakistanis illegally coming over the border. 

“That’s what we’re doing right now,” Bergquam said in a video taken at the border showing migrants in tents. “Again. Day after day after day. You saw the footage I just put out two days ago. This is today. And it’ll be like this tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And this is one point on our border and it’s like this across our entire border.” 

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Inflation Continues to Rise, Federal Data Shows

The Center Square

Consumer prices rose significantly in September, newly released federal inflation data shows, further undoing a trend of slowing inflation that had begun earlier this year.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Thursday released its Consumer Price Index, a key marker of inflation that tracks the cost of a range of consumer goods and services. That index rose 0.4% in September alone, a notable increase that is higher than months earlier this year.

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More Americans Back UAW Strikers than Automakers: Poll

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More Americans support the United Auto Workers (UAW) over the major auto companies as their strike for higher wages and more benefits nears its fifth week, according to the Associated Press.

The UAW is currently engaging in a partial strike against the Big Three automakers — Ford, General Motors and Stellantis — and have expanded to 44 different plants across the country since its Sept. 15 start, most recently resulting in workers at Ford’s biggest and most profitable plant walking out of the job on Wednesday. Around 36% of Americans sympathize with the striking UAW workers, while only 9% support the automakers in the dispute, with the rest of the 53% of Americans not swayed either way, according to a recent poll from the AP’s NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

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Biden-Appointed Judge Declines to Block New Mexico Gun Ban

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A federal judge declined on Wednesday to block Democratic New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s ban on firearms at parks and playgrounds.

U.S. District Judge for the District of New Mexico David Urias, a Biden appointee, declined to block Lujan Grisham’s emergency public health order banning firearms from being carried in public parks and playgrounds from taking effect, according to the court document. Urias temporarily blocked Lujan Grisham’s initial 30-day order banning all firearms from being carried in Albuquerque and Bernalillo County on Sept. 13, prompting her to issue the amended order two days later restricting guns only in specified areas.

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